Materials

The Process

The “Police Box” sign on each of the doctor’s tardises (or is it tardi) are very similar. However, I used this photo of the tenth doctor’s tardis sign as my reference.

You can’t see it in this picture, but the sign on the original tardis lights up, so we wanted our sign to light up also. So, the sign is made out of plexiglass. Because we couldn’t find any white plexiglass we used clear and just used a white backing. The obvious way to put the letters on was to use a stencil, which was the most complicated part of making the sign.

I figured the best way to do the letters was to make a stencil out of painter’s tape, stick it to the sign, spray paint over it, then peal the letters off. Of course this required me to actually make the letters. I began by printing out the letters I wanted on the sign onto cardstock. This allowed me to have a stencil to make the tape stencil.

The wax paper covered in painter's tape

Me tracing the letters onto the tape

The letters traced onto the tape

I cut out the printed letters and traced them onto wax paper covered in painter’s tape. The wax paper made it easy to peal off the letters and stick them onto the actual sign.

The letters cut out

I was then able to cut out the letters made of tape. Then I waited for my dad to cut the plexiglass to the size of the signs.

The plexiglass for the sign

Next, I started to stick the letters onto the actual sign. Coincidentally, I was watching Doctor Who at the time with my mum.

Me putting the letters onto the sign

The sign with the text on it

After I had finished putting the letters onto all four of the signs, I brought them out to the garage to spray paint.

The signs ready to be spray painted

Me spray painting the signs

The signs covered in paint

Then I went into the house and discussed calculus with my dog. (I think I was spray-painting a bit long.)

The next morning, I pealed the letters off the sign. I was worried that the black paint would peal, so I cut around each letter with a razor blade before pealing the letter off.

The first sign done!

All of the signs done. You wouldn't believe how much cat hair was in the paint.

I was really pleased at how the signs turned out. The only problem was that the black paint really liked to peal. To fix this I applied a clear spray paint finish.

Me putting a clear finish on the signs

Once I was done with this I had another discussion with my dog, this time about politics.

Once we had the structure done, we worked on the roof. We noticed that there’s a slight slant on the roof of the actual tardis, so we decided to make our roof slanted. This has the added benefit of keeping rain and possibly snow off when it’s functioning as my mother’s garden shed.

Dad working on the roof

The roof and the structure of the Tardis

The roof painted

Once the roof was finished, it was painted.

On top of the real Tardis is a light.

Light on 11th Doctor's Tardis

To reproduce this light we used an artichoke jar from Costco. (The artichokes got relocated to an old Chinese food container.)

The jar for the light fixture. Inside it are three LEDs and the cord (which didn't stay there) to make the LEDs light up.

For the pieces on the side of the light we used wooden dowels.

The wooden dowels painted blue

The big problem for us was the piece on the top. My dad managed to make it by gluing two 2*10s together and cutting them down to size.